Olympic Marathon Hopeful Has Testing Visit

Ireland’s Olympic marathon hopeful Gary Thornton continued his preparations for another tilt at improving his qualifying time for Rio this August when he underwent a Carbohydrate and Lactic Threshold Test in IT Sligo’s Exercise Physiology Lab.

The Galway City Harriers club athlete is one of seven Irish athletes to have achieved the revised qualifying standard for the men’s marathon of 2hrs 19mins.

Just three athletes can represent Ireland in the marathon event so Athletics Ireland will decide who to send in the coming months. In the meantime, the seven qualifiers will be looking to improve their respective marathon times.

Gary’s visit to the Institute on Wednesday was supervised by Eimear Donlon, Exercise Physiologist at IT Sligo, and Dr David Kelly, Sligo University Hospital.

The Galway-based schoolteacher was previously well known for winning a marathon at the North Pole in 2013. The race, which took place at Camp Barneo, an Russian military camp close to the geographical North Pole, saw Gary beat 50 other international competitors in temperatures of -30 degrees celsius.

Photo caption:Athlete Gary Thornton is put through his paces by Dr David Kelly (Sligo University Hospital) and Eimear Donlon (Exercise Physiologist at IT Sligo) at the Institute’s Exercise Physiology lab.